According to an article published by The National Geographic, astronomers have announced that a tiny old star that is just 12 light-years away from Earth might be home to two temperate, life-friendly planets.
According to experts, both of the newly spotted worlds are nearly identical to Earth in mass and both planets are in orbits that could allow liquid water to trickle and puddle on their surfaces.
According to scientists, Teegarden star, the stellar host is at least 8 billion years old which means, it is nearly twice the sun’s age. This indicates that the planets orbiting it are presumably as ancient as the star, which in turn also means that life had enough time to evolve in these newly-discovered planets.
Ignasi Ribas of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia says, “Both Teegarden’s planets are potentially habitable. We will eventually see if they are actually habitable and, perhaps, even inhabited.”
Ribas and his team members aimed the CARMENES instrument towards Teegarden’s star and observed it for over three years. They watched out for the wiggles and tugs produced by any orbiting planets.
After the examination was over, it was found that two small worlds were jostling the star, each weighing in at approximately 1.1 times Earth’s mass. According to the teams calculations, one of the planets, called Teegarden’s star b completed an orbit in 4.9 Earth days while the other world, Teegarden’s star c, completed an orbit in just 11.4 Earth days.
“The number of measurements is so high and the star is so well-behaved that there is very little room for an alternative explanation. So, this is, to me, a clear-cut case of planet detection. I would bet both my little fingers that they are there”, says Ribas.
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So, we might not be alone, after all, in this vast universe.
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